45 § 
Natural Science and Morality. 
[July, 
escape, the amount of punishment (as a contingency) seems 
in his judgment to be less than the direct material gam 
derivable from the crime, then he is led to commit the 
offence. He therefore, of course, deserves the punishment it 
detected, because this was precisely what he contemplated 
beforehand, and which entered in as a faftor in determining 
his decision. To remit the punishment would be exaftly 
like remitting afterwards the loss sustained m a lottery 
which was contemplated as an eventuality beforehand (the 
injustice of which would, of course, be self-evident). . Since 
crime is committed for the sake of the material gain that 
attends it, to repeal the punishment would be to offer a 
reward for wrong doing. The absurdity of society offering 
a premium for misdemeanours is too evident to need further 
comment. Indeed, the removal of penalties for cnme would 
precisely resemble (in principle) the cancelling of prizes in 
an honest contest, the prosper of earning which had induced 
the competitors to contend. 
No doubt the criminal (like the case of the lottery) may 
miscalculate somewhat beforehand the value of the material 
gain attendant on an evil aftion, when balanced against the 
contingent loss (represented by the punishment), and, doubt- 
less, society is obliged to fix beforehand the punishment 
somewhat higher than the value of the prospective gain 
accompanying the misdeed, in order to deter from evil 
actions. But on this account the criminal is by no means 
a subject for unmitigated pity. At the very outside (even 
if this concession were perfettly above suspicion) he could 
only deserve the relatively insignificant amount of pity due 
to the surplus of punishment over its true contingent value, 
which society is obliged to put on in order to make dishonesty 
unprofitable— and the existence of which surplus (in the 
penalties) the criminal has failed to see beforehand, either 
from imperfect reasoning faculties or a neglefted educat o . 
He may be compared to a foolish gambler who goes on play- 
ing when the value of the chances of the table is calculated 
^That a principle, mathematical in its nature, underlies 
the system of punishments, so as to be capable of forming 
a rough basis to a scientific code, will probably have be- 
come tolerably evident from the above, considerations. tor 
there is clearly for every crime a certain amount of punish- 
ment which is merely the exaCt equivalent of the material 
advantage gained by the commission of that crime. The 
probability of escape must, of course, be allowed for, so that, 
for instance, when the chance of deteftion (derivable from 
